I've always liked this song by Joan Baez and hadn't thought about it for years till someone played it at an open stage on Sunday. Listening to the words, I thought,"Why would anyone buy cufflinks for Bob Dylan?" This seems like the definition of an inappropriate gift. I wonder if he ever wore them. I can't imagine him having a shirt with french cuffs in those days.

I know his name isn't mentioned in the song, so maybe I've always been making a basic assumption as to who it was about.

If you look at Bob around the years '65-'66, he was affecting a mode sort of style which cufflinks might have gone very well with. Check out the album cover of "Bringing It All Back Home" for an example of the general look I am speaking of, and check out a lot of pictures taken of him in 65-66. He was not doing the rustic look in work shirts and jeans then, not doing the acoustic blues-man look or the cowboy-hobo look or the serious ascetic working-class look (like in '63), he was doing more of an uptown rocker look, almost like a young Byron gone electric....fancy shirts in bright colors and patterns, groovy Beatle boots, scarves, stylish black leather jackets...cufflinks would have been perfect on him then.

The song most definitely is about Bob Dylan, by the way. It could hardly be any clearer, even though Joan played a little mind game on him once in '74, asserting that it was about "her husband" (David Harris). Not a chance. It was about Bob.

She did 2 other songs about Bob on that same album, as I recall, or around that same time. One is "Winds of the Old Days" and the other is "Oh, Brother!"

She also did a lovely song for Sara Dylan called "Still Waters at Night".

Yeah, Bob was quite a dandy, even a fop, for a short while there. Velvet suit jackets, tight shiny pants, maybe even Seinfeldesque "puffy shirts" (i.e., with ruffles).

The period in question was the same era when he made so many "enemies" by picking up the electric guitar. I wonder if the reaction might not have been so overwhelmingly toxic if he had changed only his sound and intrumentation, and not changed his "look" or "fashion statement" at the same time, just as drastically or maybe even moreso???

I think he was rubbing their mental inflexibility in their faces with a certain amount of unholy glee in what he was doing...just as he was doing to the press also at the time. He was challenging them to step out of their usual comfort zones, and those who had no intention of doing so got really angry about it. They already felt 100% righteous just exactly the way they were, and he was mocking their righteousness. He felt they took themselves way too seriously.

I wouldn't be quite so hard on the public that didn't immediately understand what Bob was up to. Weren't we all part of that public, to some degree or another?

I, for one, didn't know what to make of Bob for a short while there. I was by no means a "purist" or any kind of traditionalist ~ hell, I really liked "Like A Rolling Stone" the first time I heard it ~ but I didn't understand the sudden change in subject matter from real-world societal issues to psychological/internal musing. Took me a while to undersatnd and get on board.

And those clothes! Not my cup of tea at all. Rock 'n' roll, no problem ~ but why not rock 'n' roll in a t-shirt and jeans?

Oh, I'm sure if I'd been following Bob really closely at the time...(I wasn't...I was just listening to Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Buffy Sainte-Marie...and I didn't catch up to Bob till '69 really)...

Anyway, if I HAD been among Bob's fans, I'm sure I would have been quite upset with the way he changed in '65! ;-) Why? Well, I was young, very set in my opinions, and very inflexible about what I thought was "good music"...and I detested rock music on principle. I was an absolute folk purist. I would have been one of the people he totally pissed off, because I was an arrogant folk purist who had trouble seeing "out of the box".

However, I didn't really listen to Bob properly at all till '69, and by then all that had had a chance to go by, and by that time I was ready to hear people do rock music too. The first Dylan album I really listened to was Highway 61 Revisited (4 years after it was released), and it was like a revelation.

I didn't have a chance to get upset over him "going electric", because electric Bob was the first version of Bob that I ever really focused on. Then I got to like all the other stuff he had done as well.

It's not that I'm suggesting that Bob should have been hard on the general public exactly...I'm suggesting that he was at the center of a very self-conscious in-group, that is, the people at the center of the leftist/political/folkie movement at the time, which was really a political movement. They wanted to hear just one kind of song from him, and Bob was into that kind of song for awhile there...but he reached a point where he didn't want to do that anymore or be limited to it...he wanted to do something different.

When he did do something different he was just castigated for it by the grand high mucky-mucks of that very demanding in-group like teh people at Sing Out magazine...people who figured that Phil Ochs was carrying on the crusade, but that Bob had sold out to "commercialism".

They couldn't see past their own big egos. You had to be on their side or you were just part of the forces of evil or something. It gets tiresome being around such painfully zealous people. Very tiresome.

To Phil Ochs' everlasting credit, he never ceased defending Dylan's creativity to those people, despite the apparent desire of the in-crowd to enlist him as their champion in condemning Dylan's supposed "sell-out".

Dylan foreshadowed what would happen in the lyrics of "My Back Pages". He delivered his most angry comment about it in "Positively Fourth Street". He was by that time at open war with the in-group I have alluded to. They regarded him as a Judas...a sellout...they also secretly envied his success, and it must have really burned some of them that he got to where they couldn't. He, I would think, regarded them as a bunch of pompous bores. They were, after all, so painfully earnest about themselves and about everything they were doing.

Funny -- I stood at the stage at Newport is 63-64 when he played electric for the first time in a major public venue, and thought it was absolutely classic. Didn't phase me at all. It was clear he was an engine of creative motion and was going to go where his train took him...so to speak...or whatever...anyway, you get the point.

Always amazes me that some folks around here think so highly of Dylan. I mean, I do and all but that's because Bob's the kinda' guy who would stuff Winona Ryder with a Dachshund and marinate her with a rub made from petrified Ojibwa crap. Yeah, a real man.........Bon Appetit!!!

I like REAL French-Cuffs (The kind that fold-back at the wrist to puncture a four-level-membrane).

I have perhaps, two dozen cuff-links (the kind that are ostentacious/obnoxious at church).

I like Bob Dylan - I do not beleive he influeced my style in the selection of haberdashery ( I was wearing Hong Kong French's with elegant links a decade before his scene )

However, you have given me an engaging topic of conversation this next weekend when someone asks, "Where did you get those cuffs?"

Sincerly, Gargoyle

Looking for OUTSTANDING Tux shirts. The REAL STUFF - that can take "heavy starch" - then try the local "thrift/poor-peolple(real people)/slavation/goodwill." Grab them while you can - the rich folks are croaking and the younger generation wants "nothing to do with dead people's crap."

Well, good for you, Amos. ;-) You were obviously a man of flexible mind and excellent judgement when you stood at the stage at Newport. I applaud your keen appraisal of the situation. Certainly, many of the other musicians who knew Dylan well at the time would have agreed with you. Maria Muldaur was there, and she loved it.

I think though that Dylan's first electric performance at Newport occurred in 1965, did it not? He played "Maggie's Farm" and "Like A Rolling Stone" in the closing set of the evening concert....then followed them up after a brief pause with acoustic renditions of "Mr Tambourine Man" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue".

I know of at least one other Mudcatter who was there, open-minded, not an egotist, yet hated it when he went electric while there. She and I have gone back and forth on it, because, like you, LH, I first really got into Bob when he was already electric. One reason it upset her so much was because it seemed disrespectful to the other performers.

Well I'll be damned Here comes your ghost again But that's not unusual It's just that the moon is full And you happened to call And here I sit Hand on the telephone Hearing a voice I'd known A couple of light years ago Heading straight for a fall

As I remember your eyes Were bluer than robin's eggs My poetry was lousy you said Where are you calling from? A booth in the midwest Ten years ago I bought you some cufflinks You brought me something We both know what memories can bring They bring diamonds and rust

Well you burst on the scene Already a legend The unwashed phenomenon The original vagabond You strayed into my arms And there you stayed Temporarily lost at sea The Madonna was yours for free Yes the girl on the half-shell Would keep you unharmed

Now I see you standing With brown leaves falling around And snow in your hair Now you're smiling out the window Of that crummy hotel Over Washington Square Our breath comes out white clouds Mingles and hangs in the air Speaking strictly for me We both could have died then and there

Now you're telling me You're not nostalgic Then give me another word for it You who are so good with words And at keeping things vague Because I need some of that vagueness now It's all come back too clearly Yes I loved you dearly And if you're offering me diamonds and rust I've already paid

Kat, the article you link to says it all. I think the audience was mostly booing things that Peter Yarrow said (such as that Bob didn't have much available time to play), not booing Bob Dylan. They mostly wanted to hear a whole lot more of Bob Dylan.

Then all the myths started getting repeated after that, and people began acting them out at future shows. Much ado about nothing!

I've got most of that show here on film on the DVD that just came out, and it's wonderful to watch and listen to.

*****

The song "Diamonds and Rust" is a beautiful song, probably the finest piece of writing that Joan ever did.

I don't know Bob Dylan. I can't say, with any certainty, what sort of person he really is. No one can gainsay the influence he has had on popular song, folk or otherwise. That said, I have always had trouble with the manufactured persona; the seeming pose of the enigmatic 'artiste' that took Robert Zimmerman, of Hibbing Minnesota, to fame and fortune as Bob (appropriated from Mr. Thomas) Dylan. I know he's not the first to ride a stage name to success, but I can't help feeling he is still putting us on, talented or not.

A thirty post thread on the subject of whether or not cufflinks would have been an appropriate gift for Dylan...

...and not one mention of the possibility (dare I say "probability"?) that the word "cufflink" was not a reference to any actual material gift given, but rather, a word that fit the meter and somewhat fit the rhyme ("cufflinks" rhymes with "something") as best Baez could.

It is always difficult to know how much of a song is literal and how much just to fit, but if Bob really did say that Joan's "poetry was lousy", the lyrics of Diamonds & Rust tell a somewhat different tale.

Keith, he said her poetry was lousy back in the early to mid-60's....and it was at that time, relatively speaking! ;-) It was then. It later improved greatly with practice. By the late 60's her poetry had improved considerably, and by the mid-70's she was writing some very, very good song lyrics, and has been doing so ever since. "Diamonds and Rust" is a classic example, as are numerous other songs like "Gulf Winds".

It is quite rare for people to write really well when they're starting out, although Dylan certainly did. Joan, like most people, needed some time and experience to hone the craft and reach her real potential.

Bob also encouraged Joan to write songs when she thought she couldn't. They had a talk at some point in the early-to-mid 60's and he asked her, "Why don't you write any of your own songs?" She said, "Bob...because I can't." And he said, "That's bullshit, anyone can write songs. Just sit down and do it."

I've read that in her own autobiographical writings. So Bob may have made a critical remark about Joan's poetry on some isolated occasion, but he also tried to give her the confidence to write in the first place.

As for the cufflinks...sure, it might have been just a lyrical invention to fit the verse...but it's also quite likely that it is literally true, John Hardly, so I see no reason why we should not have a discussion based on that hypothetical possibility. Personally, I think it likely is literally true that she gave him some cufflinks.

Sorry. I screwed up the html in that second part.Yes you did. It was tragic. A total cockup. You're an idiot of the first order. Now say, "Thank You kindhearted clone," before a cufflink latches your butt shut.----Fat Clone

Poppa Gator...that sure was bad timing on your part! Geez. But anyway, you saw the earlier part. I wish I'd been there.

Sweet Sir Galahad though was Joan's first song (circa 1969), and that isn't at all bad either. Indeed I think it is a wonderful song. However, I accept Bob probably also heard draft songs that never made it to the stage!

Joan is a very good songwriter. She has claimed that she finds songwriting a struggle, and has more or less stopped since around 1990, relying on interpreting other people for recent albums. But the lovely song Speaking of Dreams (on the album of the same name) from around 1989 shows just what she is still capable of if she pushes herself. Love Song to a Stranger or Love Song to a Stranger Part 2 are very good songs. Honest Lullaby is a brilliant song!

I think Bob's "lousy poetry" comment was probably made about actual, literal poetry Joan was writing at the time...not about her later song lyrics...because he clearly made that comment well before 1969 (I would assume somewhere in the years '63-65, when he and Joan were spending much time together and doing a lot of musical performing together too).

I couldn't agree more that "Honest Lullaby" is an absolutely brilliant song. It is the one, along with "Diamonds and Rust" that stands out to me as a masterpiece. "Sweet Sir Galahad" is not bad at all. I very much like most of the songs Joan has written.

It's just as well you were in the cooler, Poppa -- if we'd connected, no telling what sort of vile adventures we would have ended up in. Besides, you would never have recognized me if you had seen me -- I was handsome that day.

I was in my Junior year at college ( age 27 [ 4 year military stint you know]) when that song/album came out (which I promptly purchased and still have) and I got into a long and heated argument with a certain Professor "God". I contended that it was written aobut Bob Dylan. He insisted it was about Joan's husband and sans any facts he resorted to ridicule. I think he thought that he won that little debate, I mean you know? being a college professor and all....

That's how the human ego tends to work. No regard for facts, no regard for objectivity, only the desire to win at any cost...since the uncontrolled ego equates any kind of "losing" with death...simply unbearable!

Here's an example of how that works. I recall well the worst model kit of the battleship Bismark that was ever manufactured. It was Aurora's rendition. It came out right after the movie "Sink the Bismark", which was in the late 50's sometime...and every boy in North America and the UK WANTED a model of the Bismark!!! So the Aurora company obliged by making a grossly inaccurate, seriously poor model of the ship...but in a box with great cover art! Smart marketing. The cover art looked just like the ship. The model....? Sorry, it was one of the poorest, crappiest battleship models ever made, really a pathetic attempt, but just about everyone bought the thing and built it because it was the only Bismark you could get.

A couple of years later Revell and Airfix both did genuinely accurate models of the Bismark by the standards of the time, and that pretty well put an end to that problem. Who wanted Aurora's disaster any longer? Nevertheless, Aurora continued selling it to some kids who didn't know any better for years and years afterward. It was ignorant newbies who bought it. People who knew their stuff bought the Revell or Airfix kits.

Well, a dozen years went by and I'm standing in a large hobby and games store in Toronto, and there's a woman in there who wants to buy a model of the Bismark for her son. All well and good. She's talking to this eager young salesman with a beard and he's telling her that the Aurora kit...yes, this ancient piece of crap that was no good in 1960...is the BEST kit they have of the Bismark.

I walk over and say, "The Airfix kit is far better in every way."

He says, "That's nonsense! What do you know about it? You don't even work here."

"I've built both of them," I said. "The Aurora kit is extremely primitive. It has about 1/3 as many parts as the Airfix kit and it's just about all wrong everywhere. It looks sort of vaguely like the Bismark from the side, but not the least bit like it from above. I suspect they did the whole thing from a single sideview photo, and just guessed about the rest. It's missing all the smaller antiaircraft guns, and it's all out of proportion. The Airfix kit is accurate, complete, and it looks just like the real ship."

The woman, of course, was a bit confused listening to all this...

The guy with the beard continued arguing vociferously that the Aurora kit was far and away the best one! Why??? Well, because he'd already SAID so...so it just had to be. He certainly could not have been basing his opinion on any real knowledge of the kits themselves. No, he was basing his opinion on his self-image, period. He HAD to be right.

Well, in his determination to PROVE that he was right he finally tore the shrinkwrap off the Aurora kit to show how great and accurate the parts really were.

Really amazing.

I realized I might just possibly be dealing with a borderline mental case by that point, and it might not be wise to provoke him further, so I walked away. I figured, "What the hell difference does it make anyway? This lady's son will sooner or later find out for himself, and I am wasting my time here arguing with a dimwit whose self-image is more important to him than anything else on Earth.

I always avoided that guy after that, because he struck me as being, frankly, a bit dangerous. You gotta watch out for people who'd rather be "right" than be even vaguely rational.

Joan says in her autobiography And A Voice To Sing With that during The Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975/76 Bob used to ask her to "sing the one about me" and she used to tease him with "you mean the one about David" [her husband], so there is a little bit of an excuse for people being confused.

And A Voice To Sing With (written about 20 years back) is a great read. It is out of print, but you can still pick up good copies second hand.

There is another song we've not mentioned yet she wrote about Bob too, which is For Bobby.

LH as a modeler in my youth and even ocassionally now---I know what you mean. Another angle struck me that is every bit as powerful as endangered egos: The store had either over-bought that one and was having a heck of a time getting rid of them or it was the kit that gave them the biggest profit margin. Ego is always around regarless of the stituation.

But back to the song. I was still just teaching my self the guitar at that time ( I know, late start ) but I sat down and figured that one out all on my own and even the bridge which I felt reaaly good about! Wow! I was a folk player. I didn't dare call myself a singer at that time. Very little confidence in my voice. Anyhow it is a great ballad that captures the pathos of love and love gone wrong. It was written from the heart.

Never had any problem with the cufflinks- it's the kind of thing people used to buy as gifts in those days when they couldn't think of anything useful. Whenever I hear this song I want to know what that enigmatic "something" was and why it just hangs there. Did she just forget? That would mean that this is really what happened and not made up "poetry" as someone suggested above- why make up a line like that?

The "something" that Bob brought her would not necessarily have to be something material. After all, they both brought each other a great deal in a non-material sense...and that's the part of life that really stays with you. The material stuff all ends up in the trash eventually.

It was definitely a set of cufflinks that she bought him, by the way. I heard it in some recent interview. They were staying in the Chelsea Hotel, looking out the windows at snow falling outside, and she had bought him a set of cufflinks. I sort of wish I was back there right now.